


family, duty, honor

by Chrisoel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, good questions that i can asure you are not touched upon in this story AT ALL, how does all of this happen if ned's dead so early on? you might ask, i definitely failed, i had planned to write a nice j/b story in which they are happy together, who is brienne supposed to exchange jaime for if sansa and arya never existed? you might ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 19:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrisoel/pseuds/Chrisoel
Summary: Catelyn Tully did her duty for her house and married Eddard Stark instead of his brother. Now both brothers are dead and Hoster Tully knows how to use his daughter's hand for the good of the Rebellion once again.





	family, duty, honor

He is only a year and a half younger than she is, seventeen, a man grown, but the longer she sits next to him the more she gets the feeling to have a boy on her side. A sullen boy whose favourite toy has been taken away – namely his place in the kingsguard.

In the sept at least he faked some investment in the occurings, repeating the vows with a clear, carrying voice, opening the clasp of her Tully coat without fumbling, swinging the crimson-and-gold cloak around her shoulders as if he had done it a thousand times. But somewhere between the sept and the hall something changed. He has not spoken a single word, never lifted his eyes from his food, sipping wine, leaving her to thank the well-wishers.

* * *

 „He has murdered the old king and...“

„...was pardoned by King Robert of House Baratheon, the first of his name.“ Catelyn cuts into the woman's sentence and stares at every one of them until they all look away and nod. He might not care, but she will not spend the rest of her life with the moniker Kingslayer's Wife.

* * *

 In the timespan of two years she gives birth to two boys. The first – named Loreon after a Lannister ancestor – resembles Catelyn only in the color of his eyes. (At least he has the blue eyes, she thinks, because in everything else he is such a spitting image of Jaime it is almost ridiculous.)

„An heir to the Rock does not need to be coddled by his mother.“ Tywin says and employs a whole army of wet-nurses and maids and by this makes it near impossible for Catelyn to even hold her own child for more than a few minutes at a time.

„He will be Lord Lannister after my son, I can't have him become half a Tully under your care.“ he says.

_Familiy, Duty, Honor._ she thinks and grinds her teeth. But her next child, she vows to herself, will be _hers_. She cannot bear to have a third child being taken from her, not after her little Robb... She must not think of him. The day she is sure she is pregnant she corners her husband.

„You will make your father let _me_ raise this child. I will never ask anything of you again, but you must ensure he or she will be mine.“

Jaime oggles her with slight astonishment, but he promises and holds his promise.

It is a son again (and the relief she feels is mirrored in Jaime's face when his second child is introduced to him. He catches her eye and actually winks, for once they are united.) They have produced „an heir and a spare“ as the stupid rhyme goes, two healthy sons and therefore done their duty to House Lannister. Tywin has no reason to insist on Jaime's presence in her bed anymore.

Edmyn, she names him, after the first Lord Paramount of the Trident (because even if Tywin believes his own station far above hers, the Tullys of Riverrun are not nobodies). While the color of his eyes is definitely Jaime's, their shape is her father's, and his ears remind her so much of Edmure and his mouth – she can't remember her mother very well, but she thinks those gently curved lips are that of Minisa Whent. His hair is red, but much lighter than her auburn, glossy and shining like copper in firelight.

* * *

Brienne the Beauty she is called, Catelyn hears them say, Kingslayer's Whore, and she is not sure whether she wants to meet this woman. How beautiful must a woman be, that Jaime Lannister, who only ever looked at his sister with admiration, looks at her.

When the other woman jumps from her horse Catelyn understands. Beauty. A nickname, and a cruel one.

She had half a mind to tell the woman to leave Casterly Rock the minute she arrives, but when her lord husband introduces her with „Brienne of Tarth, who saved my life.“ and Catelyn looks into a pair of big blue eyes, open and guileless like a child's, she finds herself offering her room and food and a maester's care for as long as she needs it, the gossip of othe people be damned this time.

What is that this woman has she has not? Catelyn wonders about that when she goes to bed that night. Not beauty, that's for sure, not wit or graces. Youth, a body not marked by two pregnencies, that is the only thing she posses Catelyn does not. But when Catelyn watches her husband over the next days, she comes to the conclusion that the look on his face when looking at Brienne is not one of a middle-aged man lusting after a young woman's body but that of a man in love. 

Her handmaids set up a schedule to guard both the guest and the lord's chamber doors without being asked and they all report the same: the Maid of Tarth sleeps in her room, Lord Jaime in his.

* * *

Catelyn presses against the pillar in the hope she won't be seen.

Brienne stands there next to her horse, and for a person so big she looks remarkable small in this moment.

„You are sure you do not want an escort, my Lady?“

She shakes her head, hand flexing around the bridle.

„Well, this is goodbye then. It might be the last time we see each other.“ He is trying draw something out of her, Catelyn realizes.

Brienne takes a deep breath, looks away from him and back again.

„I love you, Jaime.“ she says, rushed and low as if she's afraid to be heard. „Forgive me, but... I need to say this once.“

There is enough light for Catelyn to see the pained look on her husband's face.

„And I love you, Brienne.“

Brienne's reaction is instant: her chin falls to her chest and her shoulders begin to shake with silent sobbs. Jaime's face contorts and he makes a move as if to embrace her but stops himself. Dimly Catelyn thinks that maybe it should make her jealous to hear her husband say these words to another when he has never said them to her, but all she finds in in her heart is sadness and pity. Mutual love declarations should not plunge both confessands into misery.

Brienne scrambles on her horse and after one last, longing look back she spures it on.

Catelyn stands as immobile as her husband, does not turn at the sound of rushed steps behind her, only looks up when her sons come to a halt next to her. She doesn't need to say anything, even though they are young they know. They exchange worried glances.

„If you want us to, mother, just say the word and we will ride after her and... challenge her to a fight!“ Loreon says and his brother nods wildly. It's written plainly in both their faces that they know perfectly well that this would not make the situation better for anyone involved, but it is the only thing they have been taughed to offer: to fight for a woman's honor with swords.

She shakes her head and draws both boys near at their arms so she can rest against them.

„Men must not add to her pain. The gods have given her plenty of that. They threw her in the path of a man she loves with all her heart and who loves her back equaly and still their love will come to naught.“

* * *

 For five days Jaime does not leave his room, for five more he avoids her and speaks not one word more than strictely necessary. The more surprised she is when he stands in her bedrooms door one night.

„May I come in?“

Quickly she dismisses her handmaid and waves him in. He carfully closes the door. „I was wondering whether I might be welcome to sleep in your bed.“ he says, not fully looking at her.

„Of course.“ she answers.

„No,“ he says, „only if it would make you happy, not if you only agree because you believe it your duty. Be honest.“ Now he looks at her and she is not sure whether he has ever looked at her so directly.

She thinks. Would it make her happy? Yes, because he never asked it before.

„Come.“

In the twelve years of her marriage she can remember exactely three nights he slept beside her, so it feels rather awkward when he lies down next to her. She waits for him to say something or touch her, but he just lies there, staring at the ceiling.

„Why?“ she asks when the silence becomes unbearable. „Why come to me now?“

He swallows.

„Brienne is the only heir of Tarth. She is betrothed to a man she does not love nor want and whom she will marry despite it. I told her to try to become happy nether the less. She said she would try if I promised to do the same and try to make you happy too.“

It may be late, but Catelyn guesses that there have been marriages built on less than that. 

* * *

 It takes three years until they hear of Brienne again, and it is not a happy day. Jaime is handed a letter while the family is breaking their fast. He has become quite adapt of handling things with just one hand so he breaks the seal without problems. Catelyn minds her own business until Edmyn nugdes her with his foot under the table. He nods towards his father. The letter has fallen on his plate and Jaime sits there, just sits, without moving, eyes closed, and the tears rin into his beard.

„Jaime?“ Catelyn asks carefully, „My husband, what has happend?“

He motions to the letter and keeps crying.

She picks it up. It is written in an unfamilar but well trained hand. 

> _Lord Lannister,_
> 
> _please let myself introduce myself at the beginning of this letter: my name is Gawayn, and I am the Maester of Tarth Hall. Lady Brienne, our Evenstar, has often talked to me about you in private and she made me promise I would tell you of her fate in case something happend to her._
> 
> _After her departure form Casterly Rock three years ago she had an uneventfull journey back to her home island. There she reunited with her father, who was very glad to see his only child again._
> 
> _She married a hedge knight called Ser Hyle Hunt with whom she overtook most of the adminstrative tasks on Tarth from her old father. Tarth had been raided by the Ironborn and was in quite desolate state, but under her diligent guidance our island is beginning to prosper again._
> 
> _Lord Selwyn died of old age a month into her second year back home, what distressed her greatly. Her spirits were lifted again as she found out she had become pregnant. The pregnancy was as unproblematic as can be expeced from a strong, young woman, but – and it pains me to tell you this – the childbed fever took her from us. She leaves an heir to Tarth, a strong, healthy boy - now four months old – who, on her insistance, was named Jaime „after a most honourable man“ as she told me._

Catelyn does not read any further.

„How?" her husband whispers "How can she die in childbed? She was strong as an ox!“

She strokes his hand.

„No woman is immune to childbed fever, no matter how strong.“

* * *

„Do I send a reply?“ her husband asks her later when they are minding the daily correspondence. „I only met Hunt once, and I didn't exactly like him.“

She thinks for a moment.

„Not to him. Answer the Maester. Send him... stories. Dictate me or someone else your journey with her. The babe will never know its mother but from stories. And I think you knew her better than most.“

* * *

 He does dictate stories about Brienne to her and she finds herself crying over them later. Living in an army camp, being taken prisoner multiple times, being thrown into a bear pit, nearly being hanged, this woman braved and survived more than most men, and still she died the most female death of all.

* * *

 „There was a bathhouse at Harrenhal with plenty of tubs, but I went to sit in hers.“

Catelyn has half a mind to tell him to find someone else to write down that scene, because this does not sound like a story a wife wants to her from her husband's mouth, but she listens anyway. And even though it is completely unlike anything she expected, it is just as shocking.

With a shaking hand she lays down the quill.

„Why? Why did you tell this to a woman you barely knew? Why not your wife? Why, in TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF MARRIAGE?“ she demands, her voice rising.

„All those years I defended you, shut down any gossiper, told again and again, 'He was pardoned by King Robert, not shipped of to the Wall, but fully reinstated in his place as heir of House Lannister.' And you never thought about telling me the truth. Never thought about explaing.

„Why I defended you? I was born a Tully of Riverrun, and do you know our House words? Family, DUTY, HONOUR!“ she screams.

„You might not care about your reputation, but I do! Because your reputation is mine, you dullwitted man!

„Always, always I have been dutyful. I managed my father's castle after my mother's death, I cared for my sister and brother when I was hardly more than a child myself, I obeyed my father in marrying you, this honorless... man. I gave House Lannister heirs, always, always did my duty.

„Do you belief me to be a tattle-tale? Gods, if you didn't want anyone to know, even if I wouldn't have understood it, I would not have breathed a single word of it if you had told me so! But I would have known, would not have tossed and turned night after night, wondering whether I sinned by defending such an underserving man.

"And now I find... "

She sits down heavily on the chair she has sprung up from in her rage.

"Now I find you had reasons for your actions, not selfish and arrogant ones, but... honorable ones. And I wonder why you never shared them with me."

"You were Ned Stark's wife once." is all she can get out of him.

* * *

The night the bundle of parchment is sent to Tarth Jaime comes to her chamber. She has not much to compare it to, the last time they lay togehther was the night Edmyn was conceived, but this time is vastly different then the others. Never before has she been kissed and caressed with such tenderness and purpose.

Afterwards she bites her lip near bloody to keep herself from asking and asks her question anyway: „To whom did you just make love?“

He turns on his side to look at her, and his face is honest and open.

„To Catelyn, the mother of my sons, my lady wife. No other. I swear it by the old gods and the new.“

She searches his face for a lie and finds none.

„Why now? Not in two decades of marriage, why now?“

„I can't make the woman happy that I want to. And over that pain I forgot that there is a woman I swore to make happy. That's a vow I should at least try to keep.“

* * *

 This time she gives birth to two daughters, who will grow up as lovely, witty girls with redgold curls. She thinks that his first impulse is to name one of them after Brienne, but he surpresses this urge.

„Minisa and Joanna?“ he asks her instead. She nods.

* * *

 „Please forgive me the disturbance, I am looking for Lord Lannister.“ A young man stand before the tent to which they have retreated to rest before the tourney in the afternoon.

„That is me.“ Jaime says.

The man straightens his back and brushes the long, brown curls away from his face. Jaime's breath hitches and his hold on her arm tightens.

He has not inherited her extreme height, not her coarse features or the freckles, he resembles her in nothing but her magnificent blue eyes, but that is enough.

„Jaime Tarth.“

Jaime Tarth nods and bows deep before both of them.

„I just came to thank you, my lord, and you as well, my lady, for the stories you sent Maester Gawayn. I love them. I know nothing of my mother but what the Maester told me and what you wrote down for me. They are my dearest possessions, those sole two things I have of her, the stories and...“ he touches the hilt of the sword at his side.

„Oathkeeper.“ Jaime finishes and gives a small smile. Tarth smiles back and carefully unsheathes the sword.

„Do you...?“

Jaime accepts it without hesitation. He has never got back his old skill with a sword, but he can take a few experimental swings with the blade. Catelyn understands nothing of swords, but even she can see that it is an exceptional weapon.

„A marvelous sword.“ Jaime says when he hands it back. „And no-one in all the Seven Kingdoms was more worthy of it than her.“

„Would you like it back? For memory's sake?“ Tarth asks, Catelyn is sure he would actually give it up, if Jaime just asked it, but her husband shakes his head.

„I gave it to an heir of Tarth and that's where it belongs.“

**Author's Note:**

> Not proofread by anyone else than me so... probably more than one typo ;)


End file.
